Category: Poetry (Page 9 of 31)

Shadows and Silhouettes

17 December 2023 / Editor

Poetry by C. DeForest Switzer

She stood her ground beside
the blue tarp, looking up at me in the window
from the new and unknown below.
I stared down, hoping to convey
that everything was okay;
But, of course, it was not.

My family hated the “pests”—
their destructive habits;
the drab, dirty-gray rabbits that lurked
constantly wary but secure,
indifferent,
bolting free with lightning speed…
No problem for Dad;
his pellet gun at the ready.
The offense?
Eating garden plants to nubs —
creatures older than us,
forever in the dark:
now a kit under my deck,
quiet and free of predator’s eyes
Silhouetted in the dusk.
A paper cutout, unconcerned,
nibbling birdseed on the flagstone,
feet away from her ground-level haven.
And me, in the gray twilight,
atop the shelter of her life,
My rustic deck.

As the winter wind blows the snow,
the blue tarp flaps
atop the sheltered haven.
“It’s okay,” I mouth, looking down
from my window above,
motioning with hands and body
as best I can.
“It’s still safe,” I say
to the rabbit looking up at me
Thumping her foot in reply.

C. DeForest Switzer lives in western Iowa’s Loess Hills. He loves the outdoors and studied at Cal State, Chico, competing in a South Lake Tahoe park design contest. He published a poem in the college literary magazine, “Watershed,” and has been writing since. Currently, he’s editing his first novel.

Target, at Christmas

17 December 2023 / Editor

Poetry by Allison Baldwin

All it takes is the laughter of children,
the screech of shopping carts
to remind me of love.

In the aisle on my left,
red shirts in straight lines
waiting to be purchased
one by one.

Several feet away,
my best friend, walking, in an opposite direction
toward Starbursts, Sweet-Tarts, Goobers.

I know her: a sugar queen,
even as she asks me not to let her be.

I know me: last minute shopper, buying gifts for family
even when the task is far from easy.

In a basket:
Two small notebooks
A Yoshi hat my brother will never wear
A pair of Mario socks he will.
Some dog toys.

Love is not always easy, either.
But it holds its weight.

At the register, my friend gives into temptation,
buys the candy anyway
yet I follow through, tell her not to.

(The secret: I’ve already bought her
the sweets she seeks)

When she wonders why,
I say, “I am just doing my job.”

We laugh,
and the clerk joins in.

Allison Baldwin is a poet who combines authenticity with sass. Her work has been published in print and online, with an essay forthcoming in Folkway Press’s Right to Life anthology. She holds an MFA in Poetry and Poetic Medicine from Dominican University of California.

Another Christmas

17 December 2023 / Editor

Poetry by Rohan Buettel

That time of year has come again.
We brave the crowds in shopping malls
and search the shelves but look in vain,
the perfect gift not on these walls.
The hours we spend in kitchens hot
preparing food that tastes so good.
A Christmas meal will hit the spot,
enough to feast the neighbourhood.

The cheer of hearing from old friends,
the family gathers round at last,
repair the breaks and make amends,
a time to put away the past.
The effort worth it all to place
a smile upon a little face.

Rohan Buettel lives in Canberra, Australia. His haiku appear in various Australian and international journals (including Presence, Cattails and The Heron’s Nest). His longer poetry appears in more than fifty journals, including The Goodlife Review, Rappahannock Review, Penumbra Literary and Art Journal, Passengers Journal, Reed Magazine, Meniscus and Quadrant.

This peculiar work

17 December 2023 / Editor

Poetry by J.T. Homesley

This peculiar work. For this
lowest legal wage. Paid to
help people play. In the snow.
Tempting gravity. Nowhere to go.
But down hills high speed.
Not for me. Though I will
gladly take pay to keep it on
open all be it precarious
possibility for them. Others
buried in layered flannels
and rainbow goggles. I like
to imagine behind them, they see the world
like a horsefly gushing by trees
bristled hairs in loose tail
whipping. Ears twitching and
brittle as ice. Hit the landing
just right. Broken wings and six
shattered legs lie crumpled in a pile.
Rise from the white ashes,
laughing.
Clearly this whole thing is a peculiarity.
It’s just. They keep on insisting I call it work.

J.T. Homesley is an English teacher, writer, actor and farmer currently based in the Piedmont of North Carolina. He holds a Master of Arts in writing and has been published with collections including Ghost City Review and GreenPrints Magazine. Follow his journey at www.writeractorfarmer.com.

Thrift Shop Santa

2 December 2023 / Editor

Poetry by Melissa Wold

Santa, my man. How did you wind up in this place?
Santa, my man. How did you crack your face?
Tossed amid dusty knickknacks, chipped china plates.

Did Mrs. Claus catch your paws on the photo gal at the mall?
Did Mrs. Claus without pause pack your bag? What gall!
Now you sit lost on a shelf without an elf or Ken or Barbie doll.

Santa my man, come on home with me.
We’ll boogie round the tinseled tree.
Santa, my man, come on home with me.

Did you take to bettin’ on reindeer races?
Did you take to bettin’ on penguins running bases?
Money squandered on plastic roses in cob-webbed vases?

Did you binge on Jim Beam at the corner bar?
Did you still white lightning in a mason jar?
Serendipity plunked you into a martini glass tucked in a boxcar.

Santa my man, come on home with me.
We’ll boogie round the tinseled tree.
Santa, my man, come on home with me.

Did you and the elves have a spat?
Did they pull your beard? Did you rip off their hats?
Letters flake off a weather-worn welcome mat.

Santa, my man, hang your head in shame.
Santa my man, fess up, who’s to blame for your flagging fame?
Ninety-nine cents buys you and a sea-shell picture frame?

Santa my man, come on home with me.
We’ll boogie round the tinseled tree.
Santa, my man, come on home with me.

Melissa Wold is retired from a career in student services area of higher education. She writes with a group affiliated with Mobile Botanical Gardens in Mobile, Alabama. She shares her poems with Rocket, her rat terrier. He is quick with his barking critiques. Read her first published poem in The Bluebird Word from November 2022.

Fear of Falling

2 December 2023 / Editor

Poetry by Suzy Harris

They say we have not seen this high-piled snow
for more than thirty years. For three days now,
few cars snow-crush silently down the roads,
and walkers teeter on ice-crusted sidewalks.

Just yesterday, as I walked past a bus stop,
the woman in front of me fell thud-hard.
Another passerby and I reached our hands
to her, hefted her back up, handed her
her glasses clattered under the bench.

I knew her – not the falling woman,
but the other – and after, we stood together
under the snow-blue sky, exchanging a few words
before setting off, she to the bus,
me walking toward home,
imagining myself pillow-padded,
light as breath-puffs, balancing on air.

Suzy Harris is the author of the 2023 chapbook Listening in the Dark about living with hearing loss and learning to hear again with cochlear implants. She has served as a poetry editor for The Timberline Review and several of her poems have won recognition from the Oregon Poetry Association.

The Radiator

2 December 2023 / Editor

Poetry by Charlene Stegman Moskal

My winter years speak softly.
The aroma of chicken soup
mixes with the slightly metallic
scent of steam hissing warmth from a radiator
in a pre-war building in Sunnyside, Queens.

I am looking out a second story window—
snow has fallen through the night.
My gravel playground transformed;
sleds zooming down a silent hill,
snowsuits, runny noses, frozen finger tips
in gloves with ice crystals to suck
until a pall overtakes the streets.
Cold loses its Macintosh Apple crisp bite,
angels melt into nothingness,
streets now perilous with black ice and slush.

There were magazines with pictures
of places that stayed white
dotted with dark green pine trees,
under skies the blue of my mother’s eyes,
where one ice skated on frozen ponds
ringed by white capped mountains;
places so dry, so cold that a child
would look pink-skinned healthy all winter.

I wanted to be that rosy cheeked girl
but I always returned to a second floor apartment
where the aroma of chicken soup mixed
with the slightly metallic scent of steam from a radiator
that hissed out familiarity, comfort and love
in a pre-war building in Sunnyside, Queens.

Charlene Stegman Moskal is published in numerous anthologies, print and online magazines. Her chapbooks are One Bare Foot (Zeitgeist Press), Leavings from My Table (Finishing Line Press), Woman Who Dyes Her Hair (Kelsay Books), and a full length poetry manuscript, Running the Gamut (Zeitgeist Press), Fall 2023.

Eleven Elves in Eight Elfchens

2 December 2023 / Editor

Poetry by Brian C. Billings

Stockings
hold two
for the children.
Four eyes keep watch,
judging.

Doorside,
one lounges
in our wreath’s
bedding of red bows.
Slacker.

Snap,
Crackle, and
Pop have a
friend in the pantry:
Quinoa.

Climbing
the tree
in the foyer,
one clings to a
garland.

Jesus
lies waiting
for his gifts.
An elfling offers him
peppermints.

Kitchen
candles nestle
in three laps
while the bread machine
bakes.

Guppies
rush past
a jolly figure
necklaced in a silver
ichthys.

Boxes
wrapped in
Santa paper camouflage
the final visitor in
scarlet.

Brian C. Billings is a professor of drama and English at Texas A&M University-Texarkana. His work has appeared in such journals as Ancient Paths, Antietam Review, The Bluebird Word, Confrontation, Evening Street Review, Glacial Hills Review, and Poems and Plays. Publishers for his scripts include Eldridge Publishing and Heuer Publishing. Read his poem from March 2023 in The Bluebird Word.

Cordially (in Winter)

2 December 2023 / Editor

Poetry by Jennifer Campbell

Each driveway is a scuffed shoe,
tick marks revealing the extent
of our waiting.

Days when blue sky pokes through
the gray, cars fill the roads
with more color.

The gray days are what I want
to tell you about:
landscape, water, and horizon,
different smears of charcoal.

I hope this letter finds you well
is something I could say
if I were being impersonal,
but formality went out the window
with your last address.

We may freely speak
about the steak you fixed
to perfection or how it felt
to play pool after all this time,
experiences that are so real.

Yet someone who intercepts
this letter could imagine
I am speaking of the afterlife,
the imagery of travel a tool
to express how we keep moving.

Jennifer Campbell is a writing professor in Buffalo, NY, and a co-editor of Earth’s Daughters. She has two poetry collections, Supposed to Love and Driving Straight Through, and a chapbook of reconstituted fairytale poems. Jennifer’s work has recently appeared in Healing Muse and Paterson Literary Review and is forthcoming in Slipstream.

Expectations

2 December 2023 / Editor

Poetry by Peter A. Witt

Winter arrived, unpacked its undressed trees,
waters that slowed to an iced tea trickle,
sun that slept late and went to bed early,
harvest moon that had completed its job,
now a memory of witches riding broom
sticks across its surface. We settled in
for weeks of log laying, kernels that
popped with a buttery rhythm, holidays
celebrated with family, few of whom
could remember their meaning, snows
that filled the yard with carrot-eyed statues,
and a groundhog that despised its shadow.
We looked forward to snowdrops,
robins, and waxwings, all harbingers
that warmer days, gentle rains, baby
rabbits, and softer skies were ahead.
All this we could count on year-by-year,
written only in our expectations, played
out with joy, wisdom, and wonder.

Peter A. Witt is a poet, family history writer, active birder and photographer. He took up writing poetry in 2015 from a 43 year university teaching and research career. He lives in Texas. His work has been published in several online and print publications.

Category: Poetry (Page 9 of 31)

Shadows and Silhouettes

Target, at Christmas

Another Christmas

This peculiar work

Thrift Shop Santa

Fear of Falling

The Radiator

Eleven Elves in Eight Elfchens

Cordially (in Winter)

Expectations

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